The Next Evolution: Back To School
by Kioyuki Oniga
Summary: The Xmen return to school to face a new threat, Gryadon Creed and the Patriots Of Humanity
1. First day nerves

The Next Evolution: Back to school

Here's the next installment in my X-men: Evolution series, in this fic and the rest of the series I'll be adding old chars form the comics and the sho, new OCs, adapting old comic storyarcs and form the show and using new ones of my own

Chapter one: First day nerves

Hank McCoy carefully poured the spoonful of sugar into his cup of coffee and stirred it, normally he only drank decaff, large amounts of stimulants tended to awaken the savage beast side of his personality, but seeing as nearly twenty mutants would be starting their first day at Bayville high, and a lot of old ones would be returning, he figured he'd need the caffeine to steady his nerves for the hectic day that was to come. As the alarm sounded nine am he drank the last of his coffee, stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in in the kitchen, closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the last few precious seconds of silence and sanity while they lasted, then opened them again as all hell was unleashed on the unsuspecting institute kitchen.

The door burst open and Sam Guthrie rocketed in, desperately trying to put on the brakes but failing completely, he crashed on the far side of the table, ending up in a heap on the floor. After Sam came his roommate Bryce who calmly walked in, either less nervous about his first day at school than the others, or not willing to show that he was, he sat down and quickly grabbed a grapefruit portion and quickly began eating. Jamie then tried tog et through the door, all five of him, they got stuck and then fell through the doorway seconds later thanks to a well placed shove from Rahne and Dana, who were right behind the Jamies. Shadowcat phased through the wall next to the door, Kurt teleported in, appearing on top of the table and Katie floated through the others, re-materialising on the other side. Eventually all the students were fed and watered and ready to embark.

Since everyone at Bayville high now knew about the institutes students being mutants, none of them really felt the need to hide their powers anymore. Zander, Sarin, Holly, Katie and Sam all took to the air, Rahne turned into her wolf form and hopped in the back of Scott's car, Dana took off at superspeed and Illustrati drew a rocket bike, which he and Taser took off on as soon as it appeared next to him. Kurt was preparing to teleport when he saw Michael, Bryce, Kevin, Tai and Ragoul getting into the X-van, with Kitty at the steering wheel! He quickly teleported up to his room and back down again, he went over to Bryce and pressed something into his hand, Bryce looked down at it. It was a rosary.

"Huh? What's this for?" he asked Kurt

"Trust me, you're going to need it" Kurt replied before teleporting away. As soon as Kitty revved up the engine and the X-van lurched forwards Bryce realised what Kurt had been talking about, gripped the rosary like it was a safety rope and began to mutter latin under his breath as the van tore down the road, heading for the high school.

Beast looked at the departing students and rubbed his head, at least it couldn't get any worse, he hoped!

In chapter 2 – When the mutants begin their first day of the new school year, they find the new years crop of mutant haters has gotten bigger and badder than ever before

To be continued, please review


	2. Lifes not fair

Thanks everyone who's reviewed my fics so far, I really appriciatate it

Chapter two: Life's not fair

"At least the school hasn't changed much" Berserker said to Bobby as the two mutants walked through the car park and mingled with the large group of students milling about outside, waiting for class to begin.

The X-van came careening around the last corner, missed a very expensive looking Lexus by a fraction of an inch, phased right through an equally expensive looking Mercades, took out a mailbox, then finally came to a stop outside the school.

"Sheesh, why can't anyone in this town drive responsibly?" Kitty said to the others, who quickly piled out of the van.

"Thanks for the loan but I think you'd better have this back" Bryce said to Kurt, dropping the rosary back in his hand

"Why?" Kurt asked, Bryce smiled wickedly, which Kurt didn't like one bit

"Cause Kitty said she'd drive back and I promised her you'd help navigate," he said before casually walking away, Kurt looked down at the rosary and beneath the hologram he turned as pale as the sky.

As the others who'd been driven to school by Kitty quickly vanished before she could ask them if they wanted a ride back to the institute Tai looked up at the school, then back down at the books clutched in his hands, his nerves getting the better of him. He remained like that, timidly looking up at the school, afraid to go any further until the bell sounded and he followed the tide of students inside, looking and feeling like a mouse in a pit of snakes.

"…Many of you new students may feel like there are a lot more of those here with an unfair advantage but let me assure you, it won't matter if they have it or not…" Kitty clenched her fists and gritted her teeth in anger as she heard Principal Kelly's latest speech, sometimes she felt that he was deliberately trying to provoke the X-men into retaliating so he'd have an excuse to expel them. While their defeat of Apocalypse had earned them the respect of some people, the opinions of others hadn't budged an inch.

"Can you believe that guy?" Rogue asked Kitty as the students filled out of the auditorium

"Yeah I know, it's nice to see some things around here didn't change over the summer" Kitty replied, noticing a small twin headed eagle insignia along with the letters P.O.H had been spray painted on the wall above a drinking fountain, she knew she'd seen it somewhere before but couldn't remember where, and for some reason seeing it again gave her a really bad feeling, like something very bad was going to happen very soon.

Meanwhile Tai was suffering from a problem common among new students, he was lost. He looked around at the classroom doors, looking for the one he was supposed to be in, then down at his timetable to check he'd got the right room. After checking it for the tenth time he felt someone bump into him, sending his books out of his hands and onto the floor.

"Oh I'm sorry, here let me help you" said a girls voice, when Tai looked at who it belonged to he saw it was a girl about his age with well tanned skin, dark green eyes and long flowing brown hair.

"It's O.K, I'm kind of losst" Tai replied, trying hard not to slip back into his usual way of speaking as he and the girl bent down to pick up his books.

"Here let me see your timetable" the girl said, taking it from him and looking at it. If snakes could blush Tai would be bright red at that moment.

"Looks like you've got English first, same as me, it's in 4e, two rooms down that way, you can walk with me if you like, I'm sort of new here as well" she said, handing Tais timetable and his books back to him.

"I'm Tai, Tai Habu" Tai said, praying his holo-inducer would keep it together

"I'm Anna, Anna Creed" the girl replied as the two teenagers walked down the hall to their class.

As they disappeared round the corner at the end of the hallway the boy who'd crushed Tais holowatch in the summer gritted his teeth in rage and slammed a fist into a nearby locker, leaving a huge dent in the metal as he stalked away down the corridor.

A little while later the new years group of hopefuls assembled on the field for the years first football team tryouts. Among them were Beserker, Sunspot, Zander, Sarin, Bobby, Kevin, Micheal and Bryce. As soon as Sunspot spotted who'd be judging them he kicked the ground and cursed in Spanish.

"What's wrong?" Kevin asked him

"Duncans one of the worst mutant haters at this school, last year him and his buddies nearly killed one of my best friends and a bunch of other mutants" he told him under his breath. Duncans eyes fell on the mutants and he smiled a smile that reminded Sunspot of the same one a shark would give just before it bit you.

"Well well, looks like the freaks wanna be on this team, hey y'know if you wanna be humiliated in front of a crowd we could just put ya on show at the zoo" he said, his buddies laughed a pack of jackals. Rogue was sitting nearby, heard his remark and stood up angrily, pulling the glove off her right hand, intending to shut him up.

"Don't bother, he's not worth it" Kitty said, grabbing Rogues arm, the two sat back down on the bleachers, with both girls shooting daggers at Duncan.

"O.K, there's eight slots on the team this year so here's what we'll do. You guys play the freaks in a game, whoever wins, the team places are yours" Duncan told them, the hopefuls split into the two teams.

"Don't worry guys, we just use our powers and hey presto, we're on the team" Sarin said to the others, charging up his white fire

"Oh and remember freaks, Principal Kelly said if any of you use your powers while you're at school, you'll be expelled" Duncan said as the opposing quarterback kicked the ball and the match began

In chapter 3 – Cheap shots and unfair judges, mutant footballs not exactly the most fun game around

To be continued, please review


	3. Mutant Football

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men, Marvel does, I do however, own all OCs that appear in this fic

Chapter 3: Mutant Football

The ball sailed through the air and Sarin ran for it, leaping into the air he caught it with ease, landed like a cat and took off down the field, heading straight for the endzone…

…when two of the opposing side crashed into him like a pair of eagles attacking a mouse. Sarin hit the field hard and the ball spun out of his hands. Seeing him go down Beserker immediately went in to back Sarin up, grabbing the ball before either of Sarins attackers could get their hands on it, taking off up the field, intending to complete what Sarin had started.

"You O.K?" Sunspot asked Sarin, helping him up

"Never better" Sarin replied as Beserker passed the ball to Zander, who slid in underneath three of the opposing team to score the first touchdown of the game. Principal Kelly had left his office to observe the tryouts and he didn't like Zanders touchdown one bit.

"What are you doing? You're supposed to make sure no mutants get onto the team" he snapped at Duncan, as the other mutants gathered around Zander, congratulating him on his touchdown

"Don't worry, they won't, I'll make sure of it" Duncan replied

"You'd better, or there might be another free place on the team this year" Principal Kelly said threateningly. Duncan glared at the mutants then nodded at one of his buddies who was on the opposing team. The boy nodded back and took off down the field as soon as his teams quarterback kicked the ball, aiming straight for Bobby, despite the fact the ball had landed at the other side of the field.

Before Sarin could shout a warning to Bobby, the opposing player slammed into him like a freight train. Bobby hit the ground hard, his right arm landing beneath the rest of him at an awkward angle, the weight of both him and the other player bore down on it and a sharp crack was heard by everyone near the playing field, as was Bobbys sharp cry of pain. He was rolling around on the ground holding his right arm when the rest of his team went over to help him. Sarin grabbed the player who'd taken Bobby down and sharply hauled him to his feet.

"What the hell was that!!" he yelled, his eyes blazing with white fire, the player gulped nervously, afraid Sarin might incinerate him. Principal Kelly saw it as well and had to make a great effort to keep his grin hidden.

"Calm down man" Zander said, pulling the two apart with help from Beserker and Sunspot

"He broke Bobbys arm and you're telling me to calm down!!" Sarin yelled

"Don't worry, I think it's just a hairline fracture, nothing too serious" Bryce said, kneeling down to examine Bobbys broken arm. He quickly grabbed a couple of pads and a pair of sweat bands to create a makeshift split, holding the broken bones in place.

"My grandmother was a doctor back in Poland, she taught me some stuff" he said, guessing that everyone was surprised by his medical knowledge

"Don't worry about me guys, just beat these jerks" Bobby said to the others, gritting his teeth in pain at his broken arm as Kitty and Rogue came onto the field, helped him to his feet and took him inside to the nurses office.

"Well, what're you waiting for, get back to the game or you're disqualified" Duncan told the mutants, high fiving his friend on his way back to the sidelines, despite that, the rest of the opposing team didn't share Duncans sense of happiness and just looked disgusted at his tactics.

"Hey listen, he may care that you're mutants but we don't, we just wanna be on the team, same as you, we just want to play football, not beat down on mutants" the opposing teams quarterback said to Sarin

"Good to know" he replied

"Don't think that means we'll go easy on you guys though" the lineback said, smirking

"Wouldn't ask ya to" Sarin said, smirking back as the team trunched back to their sides of the field. The rest of that half was pretty uneventful, with both sides pushing the other to their limit, even though Duncans friend tried to provoke the X-men with cheap shots and dirty tricks, they overcame it and the other team tried to involve him in the game as little as possible.

The half ended and the teams swapped ends, getting ready for the other half of the game.

"What're you guys doing, do you wanna be on my team or what?" Duncan snapped at the other team

"Your team? I thought it was the schools team" the quarterback said, more focused on adjusting his trainers then what Duncan was saying

"Take those mutant freaks out or you can forget about being on this team" Duncan said in a low and deadly voice, glaring at the quarterback

"Forget about it pal, we're not doing your dirty work for you" the lineback said coldly, Duncan clenched his fists so tight in rage that the clipboard he was holding almost snapped in two, whoever won, he lost.

While they got ready for the other team to kick to them Sunspot looked over and saw Rahne, Kendra, Destiny and Holly trying out for the soccer team, he waved at Rahne and the young Scottish girl waved back in reply. He was so busy looked at Rahne he almost missed the ball as it soared into the air after being kicked by the other teams quarterback. He caught it, leaping backwards as it sailed over his head, he landed precariously on his feet, teetering on his tiptoes, by the time he'd managed to regain his balance the other team was upon him. Acting quickly he passed it to Bryce who was waiting nearby, as soon as the Polish mutant caught the ball he took off up the field, the opposing teams lineback saw that all his team was at the other end of the field with nothing between Bryce and the endzone, and took off in hot pursuit. Bryce raced for the endzone, he was almost there when he slipped on a damp patch of grass leftover from the rain the night before, by the time he'd regained his footing and momentum the lineback had caught up and threw himself at Bryce, catching him around his waist and dragging him down to the floor with ease. As Bryce fell his arms flailed out trying to break his fall, all he managed to do was catch his arm on a sharp rock sticking up out of the field, opening up a small cut on his lower right arm.

"Sorry man, here let me help" the lineback said, reaching down to help Bryce up, as soon as he did Bryce scuttled backwards away form him.

"Stay back" he said, checking to see if he was bleeding anywhere else.

"What's the problem? I only anted to help you up" the lineback asked, insulted. Bryce held out his right arm, the lineback looked and saw a couple of drops of Bryces blood drip onto the field, where they burned away the grass they touched.

"I've got bad blood, you wouldn't want that to happen to you would you?" Bryce asked him, standing up on his own

"Guess not" he replied. The game restarted and the opposing team managed to score a touchdown of their own thanks to a lucky run by their quarterback. As the final minutes ticked away the mutants assembled for a final attack on their opponents endzone.

Zander caught the ball as it was kicked his way by the opposing team and quickly took off towards the endzone with Sarin and Sunspot falling in behind him. As he passed the halfway point Zander as taken down by the other teams quarterback, but he'd already thrown the ball behind him to Sarin, who carried it onwards. As they neared the endzone Duncans friend took him out with an elbow to the stomach, despite the pain Sarin threw the ball over his shoulder where Sunspot caught it. He shot past Duncans friend before he could do anything to stop him and crossed the final few meters to the endzone, only to see it blocked by the rest of the opposing team, acting quickly he dropped to the ground and slid along it, taking full advantage of the damp grass to slide through a small gap left by the other team to cross the land and score his teams second and final touchdown seconds before the end of the game.

Duncan threw his clipboard to the ground in frustration as the rest of Sunspots team cheered and raced up the field to congratulate him. Sunspot climbed to his feet, is ears ringing with the cheers of his team, he looked around to see the girls soccer practice had ended as well, Rahne ran over, having seen his touchdown and threw her arms around Sunspot, a few seconds alter both of them let go and backed away from each other, blushing furiously.

Duncan glared at the two teams, they may have won but he was going to make sure he'd keep a few of them out of the team regardless.

"O.K, since there's eight spots available six of you get to go through to the team, except Drake and Naie" he said

"Why not?" Bryce said in disbelief

"Drake wasn't even playing for most of the game and with that broken arm he'd be off the team for most of the year anyway. And Naie used his powers" Duncan, happy he'd be able to justify his choices to Principal Kelly

"I did not" Bryce replied

"Yes you did mister Naie, you used your powers when you were cut earlier in the game" Principal Kelly said

"But that's not fair, I didn't do it on purpose"

"Calm down mister Naie, you're lucky I'm not expelling you" Principal Kelly said before walking way back into the school.

"Since there's two still spots free I guess I'll have to pick two of the losing team to fill them, Joey Collins, Jake Keller" the quarterback and lineback looked up as Duncan said their names

"Yea?" they said unison

"You're on the team" he said, not happy about it whatsoever

"Yes" they both said, high-fiving each other

"Practice starts on Wednesday at lunch, now all of you get out of here before I change my mind" he said, marching back into the school with his friend following sullenly behind him.

"Sorry you didn't get on the team" Joey said to Bryce

"Meh, with my blood it's probably for the best, I was gonna try out for the track team anyway" he replied

The both teams and the girls who'd tried out for the soccer team headed back inside the school to their next lessons, joking and celebrating, completely unaware of what was going to take place later that day.

In chapter 4 – The new student body president Graydon Creed promises lots of changes at the school, starting with getting rid of the X-men.

To be continued, please review


	4. The Partiots Of Humanity

Chapter four – The Patriots Of Humanity

On the way to their next class, Kitty and Rogue spotted a flyer leftover form last year, it was a flyer for the student body president elections, the two names on it, Emma Frost and Graydon Creed didn't catch the girls attention, but the insignia next to one of the names did. Kitty stopped and looked more closely at it, it was a double headed eagle design with the letters P.O.H below it, she finally realised where she'd seen it before.

"Hey Rogue, look at this" she said, Rogue leaned in to look at the flyer more closely.

"Yeah, it's a leftover flyer from the student body elections, so what?" she replied, still in a bad mood from the football team tryouts.

"Look at that picture, I've seen it before near the drinking fountain on the other side of school" she said, Rogue still didn't get her point and the bad mood she was in wasn't doing Kitty any favours.

"Big deal, it's just a picture, maybe the symbol of some club whoever drew it's in, what's the problem?" she said, growing more and more irritated, she didn't want to be late to her lesson, saving the world wasn't going to help her get out of detention if she was late on her first day back at school.

"Those guys who caused the trouble at the mall had it on their clothes" Kitty replied

"Which time?" Rogue asked

"Both times" Kitty told her, Rogues bad mood lessened for a second, then got worse

"This isn't good is it, which one of them won the election?" she said, scanning the nearby flyers for an answer, because of the business with Apocalypse none of the X-men had been at school for the final few weeks of the school year, hen the student body president elections were held. Kitty found it before her.

"It was Graydon Creed, the one with the symbol next to his name" Kitty said gravely

"This is bad isn't it?" Rogue asked

"Yes, it is" Kitty replied, Rogue turned around and started for the door at the far end of the hallway, leading to the exit to the school

"Where're you going" Kitty asked

"We've gotta tell the Professor about this, if this guy'll pick fights with us outside of school who knows what he'll do while we're here" she said sternly, Kitty shook her head

"No, it can wait until we go back to the Institute after school, besides, if we skip class, Principal Kelly will just expel us" Kitty told her

"What about the others? Shouldn't we warn them or something?" Rogue asked Kitty

"Sarin, Bryce, Kendra, Micheal and Jubilee are in our chemistry class next so we should tell them as soon as we can, as for the others, they'll probably figure out these guys're bad news without us warning them" Kitty replied as the two girls quickly headed to their class, anxious to get there before the bell rang.

After her class had ended Amara was walking back to her locker, as soon as she got there she saw what had been done to it, her eyes widened in shock and a few seconds later she clenched her fists in rage. Someone had spray painted MUTANT on her locker in bright yellow spraypaint. She heard a fist slamming into metal and looked to her left and saw that Berskers locker had suffered the same treatment.

"Ray, calm down" she said, in as calm a voice as she could manage

"We saved the world from Apocalypse. We saved all of their ungrateful lives Amara, and this is the thanks we get, how is that fair?" he said, slamming his fist into the locker again. Amara touched her spray painted locker and some of the paint came away, staining her hand yellow.

"It's still wet, whoever did this is probably still around here somewhere" she said as Ray slammed his fist onto the metal of his locker once more.

"Looks like the mutants can't take a joke" a sneering voice said from behind the to X-men, they turned around to see a large crowd had surrounded them, the person the voice belonged to calmly stepped forwards, casually tossing a spraycan up in the air. Beserker recognized him as the boy who'd crushed Tais watch. A chorus of laughs greeted his words, coming form the crowd around him, some of them were wearing the same doubled headed eagle insignia he was, but most were just normal students, some of them he'd even considered to be his friends before the X-men had been discovered to be mutants.

"And you're some kind of comedian?" Beserker said, a dangerous tone in his voice.

"Hardly, I'm Graydon Creed, the new student body president, and the one who's gonna give this school back to the humans, your days of terrorizing us are over mutant scum" Creed replied, his voice full of malice and content as if he considered the people he as speaking to to be worth lees than the empty soda can on top of Amaras locker

"Is that so?" Beserker said, stepping forwards, charging up his powers, part of him knew this would probably get him expelled but he was mostly just too mad to care.

"Ray don't" Amara said, holding his arm, trying to hold him back.

"Yea, if you're gonna pick a fight with these punks let us back you up" a voice said from behind him. Bryce, Sarin, Joey and Jake stepped forward from the crowd, shoving Creeds gang out of the way, to stand next to Beserker and Amara

"Keep outta this Keller, you too Collins" Creed said, a dangerous tone in his voice

"You mess with our teammates, you mess with us, got that, mister president?" Jake asked him, saying the last two words like they were a foul insult.

"Teammates? Well I guess the football team could use some new novelty mascots" Creed said, triggering another response from the crowd.

As he said this something snapped inside Beserker, he slipped out of Ammaras grasp and swung at Creed, intending to knock that smirk clean off his face. Creed didn't even try to duck out of the way, wanting to give the principal a reason to expel Beserker. The blow would have connected, and probably broken Creeds nose if someone hadn't shot forward and caught his arm.

"Do not do it, he is not worth getting expelled" Dana said, surprisingly calmly given the circumstances.

"Yea, you're right" Beserker said, lowering his arm

"See, it wasn't enough for them to trash the school dozens of times last year, now they're going on the offensive, we need to stop them and soon, otherwise they'll take control and we're all gonna end up second class citizens in our own country" Creed cried to the crowd, who murmured in agreement.

"But don't worry, the Patriots Of Humanity are here and we'll stop them, you can count on that" he called out

"The pateriots Of Humanity? That's what these losers are called?" Sarin asked Jake, who nodded

"Yea, they're some group who sprung up here at the end of the last school year and in the summer, they're getting more and more popular all the time, you should really watch your backs when they're around" Jake replied, before Sarin could say anything else he spotted someone approaching who could end the confrontation.

"What's going on here?" principal Kelly said sternly, appearing at the edge of the crowd, unable to see the confrontation taking place at its centre. By the time the crowd had dispersed, so had the X-men, aside from Amara and Beserker.

"Someone's spray painted our lockers principal Kelly" Amara said, the principal looked the lockers, not seeming very concerned

"Youthful highjinks, nothing more" he said before quickly carrying on, apparently unconcerned. After he'd left Beserker punched his locker again in sheer frustration.

"Don't worry, there's only another lesson before schools over for the day, when we get back to the Institute we'll tell the Professor all about this, he'll make sure they don't get away with it again" Amara told him, resting a hand on his arm, Beserker smiled sadly.

"Somehow, I doubt it'll be that easy" he replied and from the look in her eyes, he could tell she believed him.

In the next chapter – Tai's friendship with Anna Creed's not a good thing, considering who her brother is, and he definitely doesn't approve of his sister being friends with a mutant

To be continued, please review


	5. Snake Charmer Part 1

Chapter Five: Snake Charmer part 1

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far, I really apreciate it

Now on with the fic

Tai looked up at the clock at the front of the class, there was still a few minutes to go until the end of chemistry and he'd already completed the work the teacher had set them, as well as his homework. The Phillipino mutant twirled his pen between his fingers as he looked around the classroom, bored out of his serpentine mind, his gaze eventually settled on his lab partner, Anna Creed, he couldn't help but notice how the suns ray that filtered through the window made her green eyes sparkle like emeralds. He remained like this until the bell rang, signalling the end of the class and the end of the school day, Tai threw his books in his bag as the other students filed out of the classroom, eager to leave, Tai was so preoccupied with checking he'd got everything that he didn't notice his lab partner hadn't left the classroom.

"Tai?" she asked him, at the sound of his voice he immediately looked up

"Yes Anna?" he replied nervously

"Do you mind if I walk with you?" she asked him, he nodded and they walked outside in an awkward silence. Finally Anna decided to break it

"Man, the teacher sure set us a lot of homework didn't she?" she said

"I managed to get through it in the lesson" Tai replied

"Oh, I was wondering if you'd work on it together with me but since you've already…" Tai realised what she was saying and quickly interrupted her

"I'd be happy to give you a hand with it, I'm pretty good at chemistry" he quickly said, praying that his holo-inducer didn't fail him now.

"Wow, thanks, I'm not really good at it, could you come over to my house about eight? Then we can work on it together" she said, giving him her address

"Sure, I'll be there" Tai replied immediately

"Then it's a date" she replied before turning and walking home. Tai quickly ran over to the X-van and hopped in, not even Kittys insane driving could dampen his spirits at that moment.

"The Patriots Of Humanity? Pretty grand name for a bunch of thugs" Wolverine said, scowling as Beserker and Amara told him and the other senior members of the Institute what had happened at Bayville high a few hours earlier.

"My thoughts exactly" Scott added, he'd been in a bad mood ever since Beserker and Amara had told him about it back at the school.

"And this Graydon Creed is the student body president?" Professor Xavier asked them

"Yea, they held the elections while we were away fighting Apocalypse" Beserker replied, wondering what else they'd missed while they'd been away. When Creeds name was mentioned Wolverine immediately looked up

"Did you say Creed?" he asked, suddenly very interested ion what the two young mutants had to say

"Do you know him or his family?" Cyclops asked him

"Nah, forget I mentioned it, it's probably not the same person I'm thinking of anyway" Wolverine said, the Professor quickly returned to questioning the students

"This could cause problems" the Professor said, his expression grave

"Well there's an understatement if I ever heard one" Wolverine muttered to Cyclops, who nodded in agreement

"What should we do if he keeps this up Professor?" Amara asked him

"There's not much you can do except try to endure it. Principal Kelly is looking for the slightest excuse to expel you and these Patriots Of Humanity seem determined to give him one" the Professor said, wondering if anything else could be done

"Perhaps we could appoint a liasion beteen the Institute and the school, someone who can help resolve any problems that arise" Storm suggested

"Well count me out, I aint exactly a people person" Wolverine said gruffly

"Yes I think we can all agree people are not your strongpoint Logan, I was thinking more along the lines of you Ororo" the Professor said

"Me? But I'm not qualified" Storm said, her eyes widening in surprise

"I can't think of anyone who is, but you do have a gift when it comes to dealing with troublesome teenagers" the Professor told her, remembering how she'd handled her nephew when he'd first come to the Institute

"O.K then I'll do it" she replied, conceding defeat

"Excellent, I'll contact Bayville High and make the necessary arrangements, in the meantime you should inform your classmates not to try and aggravate young mister Creed and his friends"

"O.K Professor" Beserker and Amara said in unison before leaving the room

"You know, I really don't think it'll be that easy" Beserker said to Amara as soon as they'd left the room

"Honestly, I don't think so either" she said in agreement.

Meanwhile upstairs Tai (with his inducer off) was in his room, getting ready to head over to Annas later, he'd changed out of the clothes he'd been wearing at school into a pair of brown combats, a green shirt and a green hoodie, he double checked his homework to make sure he had gotten everything right, eventually his roommate Kurt noticed his happy mood.

"How come you're in such a good mood all of a sudden?" he asked him

"I'm helping sssomeone with their homework" he replied

"What's so special about that?" Kurt asked

"I promisssed her I'd help her" he replied, Kurt smiled when he realised it was about a girl

"So, does she have a name?" he asked him

"Anna, her name'sss Anna" he told Kurt then Tai realised he hadn't told anyone yet, or was even sure he'd be allowed to go

"Will the Professsor let me go?" he asked his roommate

"I don't think he'll refuse, even with all the trouble around here" he replied

A few hours later Tai was checking his work yet again as Scotts car pulled up outside Annas house

"Remember, the professor said to be back by 9 pm at the latest" Scott told him

"Don't worry I won't forget" Tai replied, getting out of the car and walking up towards the house, before Scott drove off he looked up at a nearby tree where Kurt and Kitty were hiding, he nodded a the pair and they nodded back, all of them knew how hard it was to make friends outside the Institute being a mutant and they'd all resolved to do their best to make sure this went well for Tai, Scott especially, he'd read Tais folder and he knew how much this meant to the Phillipino mutant.

Tai reached the front door and hesitated briefly before knocking, a few seconds later it was opened by a woman with the same hair and kind eyes as Anna

"Hello, I'm here to see Anna" Tai said nervously

"Ah, you must be Tai, please come in" she replied, Tai quickly followed her inside. Up in the tree Kurt and Kitty kept as close a watch on Tai as they could as he headed up to the first floor of the house, where he was greeted by Anna

"Hey Tai" she said, smiling warmly

"Hello Anna, you look nice" Tai said before he realised what he'd said

"Oh, thanks" Anna said, blushing slightly, after a few awkward seconds of silence Tai replied

"Let's get down to work" he said, Anna led him down the hallway, with Kurt teleporting from tree to tree outside to keep up with them, on the last teleport he missed his landing and wound up reappearing in thin air, he reacted quickly and wrapped his tail around the branch he'd been aiming for, acting as a safety line.

"Hey did you hear something?" Anna asked Tai, looking out the window, Kurt remained motionless, hanging upside down form the branch as Kitty motioned frantically for him to stay where he was.

"I didn't, it'ss probably just a bird" Tai replied before Anna shrugged and kept on walking, outside both Kurt and Kitty breathes a sigh of relief. As Tai neared the end of the hallway he saw a door with the Patriots Of Humanity symbol spray painted on it.

"That's my brother Graydons room" Anna said as she noticed him looking at it

"He's your brother?" he asked her

"Well, he's not my real brother, he's adopted, I guess you and your friends already know about him" she replied, not looking too happy about acknowledging her connection to the mutant hating fanatic.

"Come on, we'll never get anything done if we stay out here, which way's your room?" he asked, trying to change the subject, not linking seeing her unhappy. She showed him to her room and they both went inside. After an hour Kurt and Kitty were getting restless in their tree, so far there'd been nothing out of the ordinary, just Tai helping Anna with her homework. Kitty wished she'd agreed to meet up with Lance instead of letting Kurt talk her into helping him and Cyclops. Just as she was about to ask Kurt to teleport them both home she spotted a car pulling into the driveway and elbowed Kurt (who'd fallen asleep) sharply in the ribs when she saw who'd been driving it.

"Hey what was that for?" Kurt moaned, annoyed at his sleep being disturbed.

"Look" she hissed, pointing down as Graydon Creed walked up the driveway and went in the house. Suddenly Kitty was glad she'd decided to help Kurt after all.

If Tai was lucky Gryadon would have just gone into his room without ever seeing Tai and the evening would have gone as planned. Unfortunately Tai wasn't very lucky that week and after leaving Annas room to go the bathroom (where he planned to change the batteries in the holo-inducer), it happened to co-incide with the time Graydon was getting ready for bed.

Tai had just finished replacing the batteries when the door opened, Tai's eye widened with fright when he saw Graydon Creed walk in.

"Well well, so what my parents told me was true, my sister's hanging around with a filthy mutant" he sneered, Tai backed away

"Look, I just came to help her with her homework, that's it" he said

"Maybe, but I think she'd feel differently about hanging out with you if she saw what you really looked like" he said, grabbing Tais arm with his left hand and crushing the holo-inducer with his right.

"Have a nice evening" he said, leaving the bathroom as the holo-inducer flickered and then failed completely. Tai looked at his serpentine self in the mirror, at a complete loss for what to do.

In the next chapter – Will Tai finally be able to overcome his fears and let Anna know what he really is, or will the cavalry arrive in time to save him

To be continued, please review


	6. Snake Charmer Part 2

Chapter Six: Snake Charmer part 2

Tai looked around frantically, looking for something, anything, that would either hide his appearance or help fix his holo-inducer. He quickly glanced down at it and saw how hopeless a task fixing it would be. The indcuers screen was shattered and it was emitting faint whirs and clicks, it was obvious to Taipan that it was wrecked far beyond repair. Just then he saw the door handle start to turn and the door start to slowly open.

"Tai? Are you O.K in there?" it was Anna. Tai reacted quickly, hurling himself at the door, pushing it shut

"I'm fine Anna, I'll be out in a few minutesss" he said, slipping back into his normal speaking patterns, which he always did when he was nervous. He remained at the door, holding it shut, until he heard Anna walk away down the hall, back to her room. Tai breathed a sigh of relief before looking in the mirror again, he sat down on the edge of the bath and put his head in his hands, for once he'd actually been happy, Xaviers was the only place where he hadn't been hated or despised for what he was and now that he'd finally made a friend who wasn't a mutant, she was going to find out about him and it'd all be ruined.

Outside Kitty and Kurt were arguing over what to do

"He's getting through those watches faster than you go through willing passengers" Kurt said to Kitty, who punched him in the arm

"Get serious Kurt, what're we gonna do, we didn't bring a spare inducer and he can't stay in there all night" she snapped, her gaze flickering from the bathroom window, to Kurt, to his inducer, to her backpack, back to the inducer, then to the window again, Kurt realised what she was thinking

"Oh no, you're not giving him my inducer, the Professor said he'd start charging me for those if I broke another one" he said. Unfortunately his pleas fell on deaf ears as Kitty quickly snatched the indcuer off his wrist, phased her upper body through the bathroom wall to grab Tais broken one, phased back out and set to swapping the image matrixes around between the two inducers, then phased through the bathroom wall again and left the new inducer where she'd grabbed the broken one.

Tai finally got up and slithered over to the sink, deciding there wasn't any other option than to tell Anna the truth, wishing he could have had a few more weeks of pretending to be human as his eyes fell on the new inducer. If he had any knees, Tai would've dropped to them in thanks for the inducer, but since he didn't he quickly put it on and left the bathroom.

In his room Graydon was throwing a football up in the air, smiling, he'd hear his sisters screams any minute now when she saw Tais true appearence, then that freak would be out of their lives forever. He stood up and left his room, wanting a front row seat when the mutants secret was discovered.

"You O.K now?" Anna asked him as soon as he arrived back in her room

"Yeah, I've just got a upset stomach, it feels like its full of snakes" Tai replied, smiling silently to himself at the irony in what he'd just said. Just then the bedroom door opened and Mrs Creed stuck her head in.

"You two O.K in there?" she asked them

"We're fine mom" Anna replied

"Yes Mrs Creed, never better" Tai replied, looking over Mrs Creeds shoulder was Graydon, who had an expression on his face that was a combination of shock and rage. Tai smiled back in response, watching as Graydons place turned red, then bright hot white with rage as he turned and stalked back to his room.

The next few hours passed relatively uneventfully for Kitty and Kurt, who were getting bored in their tree.

"Why'd Creed put that mouse in the room?" Kitty asked Kurt, who shrugged

"Beats me, maybe he was hoping Tais predatory instincts would take over and he'd try and eat it or something" he replied

"Well it did kind of backfire when he just picked it up and gave it back" Kitty said, grinning

"Yeah, especially when his mom yelled at him for bringing the mouse in the house in the first place" Kurt replied, trying his best not to fall out of tree form laughing. It started tor ain and Kitty quickly put her raincoat on, Kurt didn't bother and the rain soaked his blue fur. Kitty then realised he hadn't activated his inducer since they'd been in school earlier.

"Hey Kurt, how come you haven't used your inducer all day?" she asked him

"Oh, I turned it off after we left school" he replied

"Why? Normally you leave it on all the time" she asked

"It saves the battery, its kind of low on power right now, I forgot to recharge it yesterday…" he trailed off as they both realised what that would mean, they scrambled for the bathroom window but they were too late. They were so busy that neither of the mutants noticed a familiar figure hop through the rain towards the house.

Just at that moment Tai was turning around to face Anna, having just noticed the rain start to come down. Then the inducer flickered and died, the final power reserves exhausted. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window and quickly spun back around, pulling the hoodie he was wearing up to try and hide his face, which didn't really help, much.

"Tai, is something wrong?" Anna asked behind him. Tai sighed and realised that now, he'd finally have to tell her the truth. He opened his mouth to speak when he felt something small fly through the open window and land on the windowsill in front of him. He looked down and saw it was an extra power cell for the inducer. He quickly grabbed and swapped it with the dead one in the inducer, amazed at how he'd been saved twice in one day but too happy to care.

"Nothing's wrong Anna, I was just looking a the rain, it's raining as bad as it use dot back in the Phillipines" he said, walking back over to help her with the last few questions.

Outside Kitty and Kurt noticed someone leap form the tree near Annas bedroom and hop away across the lawn, they both sprang into action with Kurt teleporting out of the tree and Kitty phasing down through the branches. Kurt re-appeared right next to the mysterious person and grabbed them by their shirt collar.

"Hey let go ya blue elf" the person replied in protest. Kurt hauled them to their feet and realised who it was

"What're you doing here Toad?" he snapped, the Brotherhood member pulled his collar free of Kurts grip before replying

"I overheard you and Summers talking back at the Institute" he replied

"You're spying on us!" Kitty hissed, keeping her voice down, not wanting anyone to notice three mutants arguing on their front lawn

"Hey orders are orders, but I know what it's like to be judged by your appearance y'know? So I decided to come give you guys a hand, and give the snake boy a chance" he replied, remembering what had happened when he'd tried to steal Kurts inducer during his date.

"Wow, looks you've got a heart after all" Kitty said

"Yeah well this was a one time thing so don't expect me to go easy on you X-losers if we meet again" Toad said, turning and hopping away into the darkness.

A little further down the street Wanda watched Toad leave, she smiled to herself, it seemed there was hope for the repulsive mutant yet.

Kitty and Kurt quickly retreated back tot heir tree as they heard the front door open, Tai waved goodbye to Anna and left the house, heading to where Scott was waiting to take him back to the Institute. Before he drove away he glanced up at Kitty and Kurt in their tree and nodded, they waved back, showing their plan had been a success.

Back at the Institute Tai returned to his room and fell down onto his bed. Just seconds after Kurt had teleported back into the room.

"So how'd it go?" he asked

"It went great, no problemssss" Tai replied, to which Kurt fell from where he'd been hanging up on the lampshade.

In the next chapter – When Doug Ramsey discovers he's a mutant can Rahne and Kitty work together to save him from the plans of Graydon Creed?

To be continued, please review


	7. The Kitty, the Wolf and the Cypher

Chapter Seven: The Kitty, the Wolf and the Cypher

Thanks everyone who's reviewed so far I really appreciate it

Rahne stared at the text in front of her, at a complete loss as to what it was supposed to say. She hated French more than anything, well not as much as Kitty phasing into her room in the middle of the night asking to borrow her hairbrush. She could speak Gaelic perfectly and even had a good understanding of Latin but as for French, she had nothing, even basic words like hello or goodbye were unknown to her. She tapped her pen on the page, as if she thought the text would translate itself if she stared at it for long enough.

"How do you get to the restaurant on fifth street?" someone said, Rahne looked up form the page. She saw a boy with blond hair she recognised as Doug Ramsey, one of the most hopeless students in the class, even worse than her.

"What're you saying?" she asked him

"That's what it says, it's a question asking for directions" he told her, she looked back down at the page just as the teacher came over.

"I hope that talking means you've gotten further along with that translation miss Sinclaire?" she asked her

"Err, it's asking how to get to the restaurant on fifth street" Rahne replied, not knowing what else to say

"Correct, now that wasn't too hard to get was it?" she replied before moving on to check on the other students.

"Thanks, I didn't have a clue what it said" she said to Doug

"Funnily enough, I don't either, that just popped into my head and I've got no idea how" he said before turning back round and getting back to his own work.

Meanwhile Kitty was flying through the translations with ease, confident she'd get the high marks she always did, glancing at the door she saw Lance standing outside. For helping them beat Apocalypse the Professor had pulled some strings to get them admitted back into the school (helped by Storm, who'd been spending a lot of time at Bayville high as the Institutes official liaison to the school) and since then they'd all been working reasonably hard, by their standards.

The class ended a few minutes alter and Kitty quickly gathered her things together and left, meeting Lance outside and the two walked to the cafeteria. Rahne glared at the couple as they left, jealous of what they had. All her life she'd been the outsider, always hanging around on the fringes, not a total outcast but not one of the popular girls either, no guys had ever payed her any attention, let alone take a romantic interest in her, all she wanted was to see what a relationship was like, just once.

"What's up Rahne?" a voice behind her asked she turned around to see it was Doug.

"Nothin, wanna get some lunch?" she asked him, not having any other plans. Most of the new students were either training on the football team or watching the training, Rogue, Amara and Bobby were all in detention and Kitty was with Lance.

"Sure" he replied and the two headed to the cafeteria.

"So what did ye mean by it just popped into your head?" she asked him after they'd gotten their food and sat down at one of the tables near the corner next to a open window

"What just came into my head?"

"Th'a translation in French class" she told him, he shrugged

"No idea, it's been happening to me a lot lately. It's not just French either, when I was at the museum at the weekend I could read the heiroglyphics on the ancient Egyptian exhibits like they were written in English and I could read all the street signs and store names in Chinatown when I went to New York last week too. It's pretty weird since I'm usually lousy at foreign languages" he replied

"Maybe you just picked up those languages easy, I could speak gaelic a few months after I started learning it" Rahne replied, taking a bite of her sandwich.

"I don't know, it's like I've developed some kind of ability to understand languages all of a sudden" he said. Like Tai, Doug had a run of very bad luck that day as Graydon Creed was passing by Doug and Rahnes table with his gang at the exact moment Doug uttered those words and his senses heightened like a shark that could smell blood in the water. Luckily for Doug Rahne came to the same assumption that Graydon had and saw the look in his eye as he passed by the table.

"Hey, would ye like to come to the Institute later?" she asked him

"Sure, I guess, but isn't it only for mutants?" he asked her, Rahne thought fast to come up with an explanation

"Err, it's a special open day, the staff are letting normal humans come to check it out, to see if they can take on human students, we should probably meet somewhere first then I'll take you up to the Institute" she replied, hoping he'd buy it

"O.K, sounds good, I'll get my homework done and meet you in town at six, do you know the Grindstone?" he asked her referring to the cafe everyone at school liked to go.

"Yea, meet you at six" Rahne said, finishing her lunch and leaving the cafeteria, intending to find Storm and fill her in on what she'd just figured out about Doug Ramsey.

"Well, well, Ramseys a mutant, imagine that" Graydon said, from where he'd been standing outside the window

Meanwhile Lance had gotten his and Kittys lunches and was carrying them back to their table

"So we're still on for the Grindstone?" he asked

"Tonight at six, it'll be nice to get out of the Institute for awhile" Kitty replied, walking beside him

Just as she was leaving the cafeteria Rahne was so focused on finding Storm that she didn't look where she was going and went flying into Lance, connected with the fully loaded lunch tray he was holding and both went flying to the floor, with the tray contents landing all over Kitty, who'd finally decided to wear her brand new, hundred dollar white sweater.

"Sorry Rahne" Lance said, getting to his feet and reaching down to grab her arm, but touching her hand instead, the Scottish girl and the Brotherhood mutant both blushed and Kitty gritted her teeth in fury, at both her ruined outfit and the apparent attraction between Rahne and her boyfriend.

"Didn't you have somewhere you were going?" she asked Rahne, finding it impossible to keep the anger out of her voice

"Oh, yes, sorry. You should really get that sweater cleaned Kitty, it looks disgusting" Rahne replied, hurrying out of the cafeteria. Lance glanced over at Kitty and saw she was slowly turning red in the face

"What's the matter?" he asked her, Kitty, she shot him an angry look and phased down into the floor.

Two and a half hours later Rahne was walking through Bayville, wearing a long red coat to keep out the chilly autumn wind. She saw the warm yellow light emitted form the Grindstones front windows and happily walked towards it, looking forward to getting into the warm café and out of the cold evening air. Almost as soon as she'd opened the door and stepped inside she bumped into a familiar face.

"Oh hi Kitty, are ye meeting Lance here or something?" she asked

"Yea, how come you're here?" she asked

"I'm meeting someone who could be a mutant"

"Who's a mutant?" Kitty asked her

"Doug Ramsey, he's in our French class" she replied

"I know him, he's in the computer club with me, he writes a lot of software for the computers" Kitty said

"I'm gonna see if he'll come to the Institute" she said

"I don't think that's a good idea" Kitty replied, remembering how she'd first reacted when she'd found out she was a mutant

"Whadda ye mean? He needs to come to the Institute, it's the only safe place around here while those Patriot guys are still around" Rahne replied

"It's his choice, we can't force him to go there" Kitty said, with more hostility than was necessary

"No, he needs to go there, it's bad enough for us and we've got the Institute, if he gets the same kind of grief we get at school at home he'll have no-one" Rahne replied, her anger rising. Her fingernails were starting to form into claws and her eyes were slowly turning yellow.

"Hey Kitty" Lance said, having arrived while Rahne and Kitty had been giving their argument. At the same time Rahne saw Doug walking towards the café from further down the street. She waved to him and he waved back in reply. She saw a car stop behind him and two boys get out, both wearing the familiar P.O.H insignia on their jackets. One of them grabbed Doug and shoved a bag over his head, the other helped bundle him into the trunk of the car before they drove off, disappearing down the street.

"DOUG!" Rahne yelled, running to the door of the café and staring out, unable to believe what had just happened

"What happened Rahne?" Kitty asked, running to join her by the door

"I think those Patriot guys just grabbed Doug, this is all my fault, I should have just brought him to the Institute" Rahne said, knowing what the Patriots would probably do to Doug now they had him.

"Can you track them?" Kitty asked her

"What?"

"If you go wolf, can you track their scent?" she asked

"I…I can try" Rahne replied

"If you're going to save that guy, count me in" Lance said, having overheard them

"Thanks Lance" Kitty replied

"Hey, we mutants gotta look out for each other, come on we can go on my bike while Rahne tracks them" he replied. Kitty noticed Katie was in the café as well and was rushing over, eager to help.

"Katie, call the Institute, tell them what's happened and to track me and Rahne with Cerebro" she replied, Katie nodded, ran over to the pay phone in the corner and punched in the number for the Institute.

Rahne turned into her wolf form and took off down the street, pausing occasionally to sniff the ground, the scent was still fresh but fading fast. Lance and Kitty followed alongside her on his motorcycle. After ten minutes Rahne stopped outside a large abandoned house and turned back into her human form.

"The scent stops here, they must be inside" she said

"Kitty, can you phase in and take a look around?" Lance asked her, she nodded and walked through the outer wall, disappearing inside the house. She walked through corridors and rooms, all of which seemed deserted but had the P.O.H insignia spray painted all over the walls, finally she reached a room near the back. The room was pitch back aside from a small light set in the ceiling near the centre of the room, underneath the light was Doug, with the bag still on his head. She ran over to him and pulled the bag off his head to check he was O.K, he looked unharmed, just unconscious. As soon as she did the lights came on.

"Looks like we got two mutants for the price of one" a sinister, mocking voice said, Kitty squinted against the bright lights trying to see the speaker. As her eyes adjusted to the bright lights she saw it belonged to Graydon Creed and he wasn't alone, there were at least a dozen other guys their age with him, all with the Patriots of humanity insignia on their hats, jackets and shirts. All of them had baseball bats, blocks of wood, rocks and lengths of chain.

"What did we do to deserve this? What did we ever do to you?" she screamed at the top of her lungs

"You were born" Graydon replied, with no trace of emotion in his voice as his cronies advanced, readying their weapons.

Outside Lance and Rahne heard Kittys screams and swung into action

"How do we get in? There isn't a door" Rahne said

"Don't worry, I'll make us one" Lance replied, concentrating he clenched his fists and the ground around the house began to tremble violently. Cracks began to appear in the wall and soon a large section caved in, the two mutants quickly rushed inside, with Lance doing the same to every wall they came across.

Kitty stood her ground next to the chair Doug was tied to, unsure of what to do as Graydon and his henchmen got closer and closer. Suddenly the far wall began to tremble and then caved in, Lance and Rahne stepped forwards trough the cloud of dust

"Lance!" Kitty cried out, realising he'd heard her.

"Get away from my girl" he growled, slamming his hands together and sending a shockwave through the floor, Graydon and the others went flying with many dropping their weapons. Rahne turned into her wolf form and leapt forwards landing in front of Kitty and Doug and partially turning human, resembling a humanoid wolf. She howled at them and most ran the other way, scrambling over one another to reach the door at the other side of the room.

"What're you all scared about. She's just a freak" Graydon yelled, grabbing a baseball bat someone had dropped and running at Rahne, slamming it into her abdomen. Rahnes eyes widened and she let out another howl, this time one of pain and dropped to her knees. A smirk ran over Graydons face as he raised the bat again, this time intending to bring it down on her head, as he brought it down it connected with her head, and passed right through it, Rahne looked behind her to see Kitty and realised she'd phased her through the bats swing.

As he brought it back for another swing a hand clamped on his shoulder.

"You really don't wanna do that bub, trust me" Graydon lowered the bat and turned around to see Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Nightcrawler and Storm.

"Drop the bat" Cyclops demanded, Graydon didn't comply

"Come on, give me an excuse" he said in a low, deadly voice, reaching up to his visor. Graydon realised he meant it and the bat fell to the floor. As it did he yanked his shoulder free from Wolverines grip and made a run for the hole Lance had created earlier.

"This isn't over freaks, this isn't over" he yelled over his shoulder as he fled

"No, it's not" Cyclops muttered under his breath

Later Dougs parents shook hands with Professor Xavier and Storm and got into their car, and left the Institute. Doug was already safely home. The Professor and Storm walked over to where Rahne, Kitty and Lance were sitting outside, enjoying the cool autumn air.

"Well that went a lot better than I thought" the Professor said

"What did they say?" Rahne asked

"It looks like you were right Rahne, Doug is a mutant, apparently with the power to translate and understand any language he reads" he replied

"So what's he decided to do?" Kitty asked

"He's not sure, however his parents feel that it would be in his best interests if he were to stay here for awhile, at least until he gets the hang of his new powers"

"Awesome, it's a shame you won't stay here either Lance" Kitty said

"You've got your crowd Kitty, and I've got mine, I appreciate you getting me back into school Professor but I think I'll stick with Blob, Toad and Pietro" Lance replied, getting on his bike and taking off

"Why the long face Storm?" the Professor asked her after the students had gone inside

"It's what Creed said, it's not over is it Charles?" she asked

"No I'm afraid it's not" he replied

'And it's likely not to end well either' he thought as he and Storm headed back inside the Institute, wondering if Creed would abduct someone he only suspected was a mutant, what would he do to the X-men?

In the next chapter – Jean returns and Storm must go beneath the streets of Bayville to save her nephew as Duncan and Creed team up to get revenge on Spike and the Morlocks.

To be continued, please review


	8. Stormdrain

Chapter Eight: Stormdrain

As alwayus, I don't own the X-men or any other multi million dollar stuff

Storm opened the latest letter she'd been sent from her nephew and started to read it as she summoned a small, fluffy white rain cloud to water one of her favourite orchids in her rooftop greenhouse.

_Dear auntie O _

_Things are going fine down here in the sewers, well as good as it can get when you've gotta hide from the rest of the world beneath their feet. Caliban came back hurt a few days ago after he went to look for food, he was beat up pretty bad but he won't say how he got like that or who attacked him, Callisto's really mad about it but since Caliban's not talking, she can't do anything. That aside we haven't had any trouble since Duncan and his buddies attacked us and we've picked up a couple of new members, looks like every mutant's coming to Bayvile these days huh? I managed to convince Callisto to let you come down here for a visit, that is if you want to. She said you could bring a few of the others if you wanted, it looks like she's finally starting to trust the X-men._

_Love you lots _

Evan 

As she read the letter Storm gripped the paper tightly, the small storm cloud grew bigger as she read the part about Caliban being attacked, drowning the orchid under the torrent of rain that poured from the cloud, which by now was a dark, angry black in colour. She already had a pretty good idea of who'd attacked him and stood up, intending to got straight to the Professor to tell him of her suspicions when she noticed the drowned flower, the black storm cloud now sending a torrential downpour onto the poor plant, the puddle on the table and the sizeable pool of water on the floor beneath the table, cursing she dissipated the cloud and grabbed a mop.

By the time she'd managed to get the mess cleaned up she hadn't forgotten about the letter. She heard a commotion in the foyer and opened a nearby then flew out to investigate, Storm landed on the ground outside the mansion and when she saw what the commotion was about all thoughts of the letter were temporarily pushed form her mind. Standing just inside the foyer, surrounded by the older students and teachers and her luggage, was her old friend, Jean Grey.

"Hey Jean, it's good to see you again" she said, rushing over to greet her

"Nice to see you too Storm, and all the new faces" she replied, noticing the new students gathered in a large clump at the far end of the foyer, not knowing who Jean was and unsure of why the older mutants were causing such a fuss over one mutant.

"Yea, things've gotten pretty interesting since you left red" Logan said

"How long will you be staying here for Jean?" the Professor asked, wheeling his chair in as soon as he'd seen her

"I've got a few weeks vacation so I'll probably stay until those are over, to be honest I really missed this place" Jean said, looking around at the institute.

"I'd be happy to offer you a temporary teaching position here until then, with this many new students it's been quite hectic" the Professor said

"I'd be happy to, I've spent months studying university level medicine and genetics, how bad can a few kids be?" Jean replied, unaware of just what she was letting herself in for.

As Jean said that Storm remembered Evans letter.

"Professor can I have a word in private?" she asked him, he nodded and they left the students and Jean.

"I believe you should take up Evans offer, if Calisto wants to establish a relationship with the Institute, we should encourage her as much as possible" the Professor replied

"Should I bring anyone with me?" Storm asked

"I don't think you will run into any trouble, this is a diplomatic mission and we've never had any trouble form the Morlocks in the past. Take your team and Logan, just in case" he replied

"Thank you Charles" Storm replied as she left

"Huh, you want me to go down into the sewers on bodyguard detail?" Logan replied after Storm had asked him

"It's just a precaution Logan, there's not going to be any trouble, Charles just wants you to tag along" Storm replied

"I don't know, last time I crossed them I nearly gutted their salamander guy" Logan replied

"Plus the sewers really don't do my heightened senses any good" he added, luckily Jean overheard that last part.

"If you don't mind I'll tag along instead Jean, Logan said he'd take over my class this afternoon anyway" she said

'_You owe me one'_ she told Logan telepathically, he smiled and went back to drinking his coffee

"That should be fine Jean as long as you don't mind the sewers" Storm replied

"Hey after Appocalypse what's a little time in the sewers?" Jean said, making a drastic understatement for the second time that day.

"We're going where?" Solaris asked

"Into the sewers" Storm replied as Jean lifted the heavy manhole cover off with her telekinesis

"You gotta be crazy, how the hell am I gonna keep this uniform clean?" he replied

"Well you shoulda picked a different colour for it" Stormcaller said, as Murmur climbed down into the sewer system below.

"I am not going down there" Solaris replied, Storm gave him a stern look

"Fail me if you want, I aint going down there" he replied, not moving an inch as the others descended into the darkness of the sewers. At the last second Stormcaller stuck his hand out and a blast of wind lifted Solaris off his feet, carried him over to the open manhole, then sent him plummeting into the sewer. He shrieked as he hit the water and came up spluttering, his white fire temporarily extinguished.

"I hate you sometimes" Solaris said, glowering at Stormcaller as he climbed down the ladder

"I know" he replied, grinning.

Unknown to the X-men, someone had been watching them descend below the town. Duncan knew they were going to link up with the Morlocks. He'd hated them ever since the incident before the summer. When the police had brought him home he'd been grounded all summer, he'd lost his football scholarship to Empire state university and was nearly expelled form school, luckily Principal Kelly hadn't wanted the football team to lose its star player and had pulled some strings to save him and his friends from expulsion and a stint in juvenal hall.

"Those mutant freaks cause you trouble too?" a voice said from behind him, looking around he saw Graydon Creed standing behind him

"Yeah, you're the student body president right?" Duncan asked him

"Yes, and like you, I want those sewer dwelling freaks out of the picture, permanently" Creed replied

"What do you want from me?" Duncan asked, Creed smiled nastily before replying

"You've got the technology and know the location of their hideout, I've got the manpower and resources, together we can put those freaks out of commission, for good" he said, snapping his fingers, at that signal a dozen people stepped forwards out of the shadows of the building.

"Do we have a deal?" he asked holding out a hand

"We do" Duncan replied, shaking Creeds hand and with a similar evil grin plastered on his face.

"Are we there yet?" Solaris replied for the tenth time since landing in the sewer.

"It's just a little further ahead, we'll be there soon" Storm replied as the group trudged through the tunnels beneath Bayville.

"How many times has she said that?" Solaris said to Zander

"How many times have you asked her?" he replied, Murmur giggled at his comment.

Solaris rolled his eyes and summoned another white fire light, drawing more solar energy from his pendant. The light ran across every inch of the tunnel around them, casting the entrances of the nearby side tunnels and smaller links into pools of pitch black shadows. As they passed one neither Murmur or Zander noticed the pairs of eyes hidden in their murky depths. Solaris briefly saw them but when he shined the light back over the tunnel, they were gone.

Then suddenly a patch of tunnel wall in front of Solaris began to move and separate form the rest of the surrounding stone and mortar. A pair of bulbous yellow eyes appeared in it as the creature stood up and faced the young mutants

"AH EVIL TUNNEL TROLL!!" Solaris shrieked, leaping back and charging up both his fists with white fire, intending to incinerate the creature in front of him. Storm immediately spun around to face the creature then relaxed when she saw it, recognising who it was.

"Hello Salamander, is my nephew with you?" she asked him, he nodded and stood too one side as a spiky figure emerged from a nearby side tunnel.

"Hey auntie O, long time no see" he replied, Storm immediately rushed over and hugged her nephew

"It's so good to see you again Evan" she said

"It's good to see you too auntie O, come on Callisto's this way" he replied, turning away and heading back down the side tunnel he'd appeared from. Salamander and the X-men followed him, disappearing from sight into the shadows.

The Morlocks were in a small chamber that the side tunnel opened up into, a channel of water ran through the middle of it and there were several smaller chambers off to the side, which looked like they'd been built by melting away the rock, in the smaller chambers were several mattresses and blankets, from the looks of things the Morlocks hadn't been there for more than a few weeks. Callisto was sitting in one of the chambers studying a map when the X-men arrived, she immediately stood up and walked over to greet them.

"You must be Storm, it's an honour to meet you, Evans told us a lot about you" she replied, bowing slightly

"Likewise Callisto" Storm replied, returning the gesture, the other Morlocks came over and introduced themselves to the X-men

"Sorry about the tunnel troll thing, you kinda took me by surprise back there" Solaris said to Salamander

"It's O.K, I get that a lot when I sneak up on people" he replied

"You're Evan right? Storm talks about you a lot" Zander said to Evan

"Yea it looks like a lot's changed since I left Xavier's" he replied

After a few minutes the two groups had settled down and started talking. Storm telling Callisto about her role as liaison between the Institute and Bayville High, and how they should do the same and set up a liaison between them and the Morlocks. Murmur was looking around at the cavern when she saw something roll forwards from a side tunnel, when she looked closer she saw what it was, a grenade.

"Everyone down" she yelled, rushing forwards at super speed and picking it up, hurling it down into the channel of water to lessen the force of the explosion, when it detonated she was catapulted backwards and landed in Solaris arms. The two blushed and looked at each other awkwardly before remembering they were in a sewer under attack and not at high school and Solaris immediately put Murmur down, creating another white fire light and shining it up into the tunnel where the grenade had came from. The light illuminated the tunnel, showing the person who'd thrown the grenade, Graydon Creed.

"Well well, looks like this sewers got a little rat infestation, let's see if we can't fix that" he said cruelly, behind Duncan and their gang appeared all sporting new energy guns (the ones they used in the episode where Duncans gang attacked the Morlocks).

"Back off Duncan, this doesn't have to go down like this" Zander said, stepping forwards

"Yes, it does" Duncan replied, levelling his gun at Zander and pulling the trigger, the energy bolt hit him square in the chest and he dropped to the floor, a black smouldering burn mark in the middle of his chest.

"ZANDER!" Murmur yelled, running forwards, Callisto knelt down and placed a hand on his chest, her enhanced senses picking up his heartbeat.

"It's only a minor wound, he'll be fine" she said

"This is your last warning, leave now or you will be dealt with severely" Storm told Duncan and Graydon. Graydon fired his gun at her only for Storm to deflect the energy bolt with a bolt of lightning

"You were warned" she said, her eyes glowing with tiny lightning bolts that danced around in her pupils. She concentrated as electricity raced down her arm, pooling in her left hand, she jabbed at Creed and the lightning bolt arched out towards him, but like Storm Creed simply fired his gun, this time his energy blast countered her lightning bolt.

Around the cavern the battle was turning in the mutants favour, Callisto spun her staff around in her hands with the skill of a cheerleader twirling her baton, the metal pole deflecting the shots being sent her way. Evan was using two small spikes as self made escrima fighting sticks, twirling them around in his hands, bringing them down on the skulls and backs of the P.O.H members who rushed him, he sprouted spikes form the soles of his feet and used them to run up the walls of the cavern, leaping over his opponents heads, using attacks that even beast could only dream of and Solaris was melting the gun barrels and mechanisms with well placed bursts of white fire.

Murmur looked up from Zander and decided to end this before any of the P.O.H got hurt, as much as she wanted to be the one who did the hurting. Closing her eyes she focused her telepathy and let it flow out of her mind like an endless stream of thought.

Duncan took advantage of Callisto's eyepatch to land an energy shot on the back of her head, as he steadied his gun for another shot he found himself unable to focus as an unending torrent of indecipherable murmuring entered his head, it built up and built up until it blocked every outside sense out, making oblivious to everything else except the murmuring, and how he could make it stop. Murmur nodded at Solaris, Spike and Storm, who quickly took out the power cells of the energy guns with well aimed spikes, lightning bolts and white fire blasts. When the murmuring began to die down and the P.O.H members opened their eyes they saw their weapons ruined and the very angry mutants facing them. Their ears still ringing with the murmurs they turned tail and fled from the cavern like kicked dogs, knocking each other down and scrambling over one another in their rush to escape.

As the last stragglers fled the cavern Graydon Creed remained behind, he threw an X-men insignia he'd ripped from one of their uniforms during the fight at Storm

"This is yours, we're not done, not by a long shot" he snarled before turning and heading for the hills, disappearing behind a curtain of water from a cracked pipe that cascaded over the tunnel he and his gang had first appeared from.

Storm bent down and picked up the insignia as the X-men and Morlocks helped one another to their feet. She felt a hand clasp her shoulder and looked around to see it was her nephew.

"Don't worry auntie O, we'll stop them, somehow" he said, both of them looked at the X-men and Morlocks, helping one another, seeing two groups who months before didn't even come close to seeing eye to eye fight side by side filled both of them with hope, hope that somehow, someway, Graydon Creed and his Patriots Of Humanity would be stopped, that they could be stopped and that the X-men were going to be the ones who'd stop them.

"I can't believe it, those sewer rats humiliated me again" Duncan said, kicking a large metal can across the alley.

"Maybe we were too reckless, before attacking the normal mutants on the street we need to go after the ones who protect them, the X-men" Graydon said, watching as the members of El Ninio climbed back out of the sewers

"And how d'you suggest we do that?" Duncan asked sarcastically, starting to think that throwing his lot in the P.O.H was only to go make his life worse, not better.

"Your forgetting, what's the best way to kill a snake?" Creed replied, watching as the X-men waiting to collect Storm and her team showed up

"What the hell are you talking about? Stop being so freakin cryptic" Duncan said

"The best way to kill a snake is to cut off its head" Graydon replied, grinning evilly as his cruel gaze settled on Cyclops.

In the next chapter – When Alex Summers visits his brothers team the Patriots Of Humanitys mission goes from minor threat to murderous crusade

To be continuted, please review


	9. Summerset Part 1

Disclaimer: I don't own, and will never (sadly) own the X-men, howe ver all my OCs in this fic and all my other fics are mine, so it's not all bad news

Secondly a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far, especially regular reviewers Jessie07 and X00001, thanks guys, your review's mean a lot, as do all the others

And now, on with the fic

Chapter Nine: Summerset Part 1

As the humans walked along the sidewalk, each going on with their daily lives they didn't know who was passing by them. With his tanned skin, dark blond hair and surfers attire, Alex Summers definitely stood out a mile from the inhabitants of Bayville, while they'd been battling with snowballs and building snowmen he'd been out on his board, catching the massive breakers off the Hawaiian island that had been his home ever since the crash that had orphaned him and his brother Scott.

He looked up at the Institute on the hill above Bayville and felt the butterflies that had filled his stomach when he'd boarded the plane in Honolulu return. He was finally going to get a taste of what life was like at the Xavier Institute. His brothers endless attempts to persuade him to give it a try had finally paid off, his foster parents had let him come here, the surfing championships in Hawaii were over for the year so he didn't need to worry about them affecting his stay here, everything had been planned out months before.

So why did he feel so completely terrified?

He walked up to the gates of the Institute and pressed the button next to the speaker.

"Err, Alex Summers here to see Scott Summers" he said, unsure of what the response would be

"Please come up to the building Alex, Scott's been expecting you" Professor Xavier said over the intercom.

The gates swung open and Alex started up the driver towards the building. The leaves on the trees were slowly starting to turn from green to red, brown, orange and yellow, he'd never seen a real Autumn before, he could barely remember life back when his and Scotts parents were still alive and in Hawaii it was either a sunny day or a typhoon. He reached the mansion and quietly knocked on the door, feeling very out of place in the chilly costal town. The door opened and Scott was waiting to welcome his brother to the Institute.

"Hey bro" he said, hugging him briefly

"Hey man, what's up?" Alex replied, returning the hug before breaking away and looking more closely at his older brother. The months since he'd last seen him seemed to have taken their toll, Scott had kept him up to date on things at the Institute and Bayville, so as to make sure he'd know what to expect when he came here. His brother seemed tried, he seemed fine but Alex could see in his eyes that the stress and worry of recent events were taking their toll on his older brother. He wondered if coming here had been such a good idea after all.

"Not too bad bro, things've been better, c'mon I'll introduce you to the others" he said, leading Alex inside the Institute.

Inside the Corsairs, Kitty, Rahne, Roberto, Bobby and Rogue were coming out of the danger room with Doug, the Institutes newest student, in tow.

"That was an awesome simulation, how'd you mange to write the program for it?" Roberto asked Doug, not being especially good with computers himself

"It was pretty easy actually, I just borrowed a few video game characters and backgrounds and wrote the program based around the already existing one for the computer game I got them from" he replied, feeling more at ease than he had been before the session had started. His power wasn't much use in a fight and it was good to find a way it could be put to good use.

"Hey guys, this is my brother Alex" Scott said, introducing his brother

"Hi" Kevin said, the others gave similar responses

"Hey guys" Alex replied

"So bro, up for a run in the danger room?" Scott asked him

"You sure I'm O.K to?" Alex asked

"Sure, in fact Beasts team's just about to start their session in there, you can tag along with them" Scott replied, not noticing how the colour drained form Alex's face when he said that, he'd surfed waves that most seasoned surfers wouldn't go near, fought off a shark, but the thought of stepping inside the room that Scott had told him so much about filled him with more fear than any wave or sea creature ever could.

Ten minutes later he was dressed in a X-men uniform and standing alongside the Wildcards.

"O.K guys, your objective is to stop your opponent and save the civilians. And don't forget to work as a team" Beast told them over the intercom as the simulation kicked in.

"Whoa, Doug's really modest about his work" Bryce said. They were in a simulated city and for a moment they were blissfully unaware of who or what they were meant to be fighting, but alas, all good things must come to an end.

Suddenly a salvo of missile shot through the air and slammed into a nearby newspaper stand, blowing it to smithereens. They looked around and saw four sentinels, in all the black and red, mutant hunting glory.

"Oh great, just great" Holly said, looking up at their opponents

"What do we do?" Alex asked Illustrati, who replied in sign language

"Ah, gotcha" Alex replied

"You know sign language?" Bryce asked him

"Yea, when you're out in the middle of a wave with the roar of the water in your ears, signings the best way to talk to the guys riding the wave next to you" Alex replied, sending a energy blast at the nearest sentinel, the blast hit it in the kneecap and the robot equivalent was blasted clean off, separating the sentinels lower right leg from the rest of the robot. The sentinel teetered for a few seconds, desperately trying to remain upright, before its remaining leg failed it and it fell sidewards, right in top of a group of school children.

Medium started to rush forwards before Bryce caught her arm and pointed at Illustrati, who was busy scribbling on his notepad. A massive baseball bat appeared in midair and swung at the machine, sending it flying through the air to land in the middle of the street, exploding in a massive fireball when it hit the ground. Illustrati looked up, smiling and started signing at his team-mates.

"He's saying there's a sentinel for each of us, and since he just took that one down, the others are your problem" Alex told them, translating for the mute Italian.

"The time he picks to be humorous" Bryce grumbled, setting off towards his sentinel.

Another sentinel fired a blast of green gel at Medium, intending to trap her just as its real world counterpart had captured the X-men when Trask had first set it loose. At the last moment she turned ethereal and floated effortlessly out of the goo. She floated up to the sentinel, which was hovering in the air by this point, and saw a dead pigeon lying on a nearby window ledge. Her hands glowed with eerie green energy as she zapped the pigeon with it, its eyes glowed with the energy as it rose, revived by her mutant power. It flew at the sentinel and worked its way into one of its exhaust vents, the vent exploded in a fireball and the sentinel plummeted to earth, smashing into the ground like a meteor, it emitted a few whirls and clicks before it finally fell silent.

Alex distracted the final two sentinels, firing a barrage of energy at them while Bryce sneaked closer. He climbed up to the sentinels waist and unwrapped the bandages around his hands and placed them on the sentinels left arm as it was charging up its cannon to fire at Alex. His acidic blood ate away at the cables connecting the lower arm and it rusted through them just as the cannon was ready to fire. It fell away and hit the ground, spinning around to point right at the other sentinel. It fired and the sentinel's head exploded, Bryce leapt away as the headless sentinel fell backwards onto the other one, bringing them both down and exploding in a massive blast of metal and plastic.

The holograms faded away and Beast came into the danger room

"Nicely done Wildcards, and you too Alex" he told them

A few hours later Scott was sitting out on one of the Institutes balconies with Jean when the door opened and Alex stepped out into the cool evening air.

"I'll leave you two alone, this looks like one of those brotherly moments" Jean said, floating up over the edge of the balcony and landing on the lawn below.

"So, how'd it go?" Scott asked his brother

"Not bad man, it was a blast, not as much fun as surfing but it's pretty close" he replied

"Close enough for you to stay here fulltime?" Scott asked him, Alex looked uneasy as he replied

"I don't know bro, I've got a good life back in Hawaii, my adoptive parents have always been really good to me and I'm not sure I wanna call it quits on my surfing career" he said, noting how disappointed Scott looked, he knew how much him coming to the Institute meant to his brother and as much as he didn't want to upset him, he wasn't sure he wanted to make such a big decision based on his brothers happiness.

"Well you don't have to decide right away. Me and Jean are going on a date later, what about you give me an answer when we get back?" he asked him

"Sounds cool, O.K, you'll have an answer when you get back" he told him.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to go now?" Storm asked the Professor

"It will be fine, Logan is away on personal business and Hank will be staying here to keep an eye on things. I think the two of us will stand a better chance of convincing Warren to join us then if I go alone" he replied as he prepped the X-jet. The two of them boarded it and it took off, flying out over Bayville towards New York city, hoping to return with Archangel.

As the jet left and Scotts car pulled away form the Institute a pair of very untrustworthy youths observed the X-mens senior members leave.

"Looks like now's the best time, they're sitting ducks without the old guy and Summers and Grey" Duncan said to Graydon, who nodded

"Told you, wait till you see what I've got for those little freaks" he said, whistling. A pair of his cronies emerged from the darkness behind them, carrying a large weapon, a big red and black laser cannon

"Dude, did you get that where I think you got it?" Duncan, now with the .P.O.H insignia on the back of his football jacket, said

"Sure did, my dad's one of the clean up crew who got rid of all the wreckage from the big sentinel fight with the X-men a few months back, it was pretty easy to salvage some of its better parts from the dump where they left it" he told him as he raised a pistol and fired it into the air three times, the signal for the war between the Patriots Of Humanity and the X-men to begin.

The cannon charged up and fired, blasting down the Institutes iron gate as if it was made of paper and carrying on up to the front of the mansion.

Hank McCoy was walking down a hallway, sipping a cup of coffee and reading one of his favourite books when he noticed a strange green light out of the corner of his eye. He turned around to get a better look as the light got brighter and brighter until it filled his line of vision completely. He realised what it was and threw himself backwards as the beam tore through the front of the mansion in a massive explosion and the entire front section collapsed, burying Beast amid tons of rubble and masonry. As the dust settled the Patriots Of Humanity and Duncans gang advanced, all wielding new and improved beam weapons as well as shotguns and semi automatics.

The front door was blasted down and they entered the building. Rahne, Kendra and Beserker were loitering around and were thrown to the ground by the laser blasts impact. By the time they'd gotten to their feet the P.O.H were upon them, Beserker took a hit to the chest, was slammed against the far wall and slid to the floor, barely breathing, Wolfsbane turned into her wolf form and leapt at his attacker. She clamped her jaws around his left arm and shook it violently, taking comfort in his screams in pain, avenging the injured Beserker. As she let go and prepared to go after another target a shotgun blast echoed through the air and she dropped to the floor, her hindquarters a bloody mess from the shotgun blast. Kendra turned around and blasted the alarm system, hotwiring it, she took a bullet to the thigh and dropped back down to the floor, in immense pain but happy. She'd managed to get a warning to the others to spare them a similar fate.

As the P.O.H advanced further into the building another mutant stepped up to confront them. When Duncan saw who it was he laughed like a hyena.

"Get out of here kitty cat, we might even let you live" he said

"I don't think so" she said, crossing her arms

"Whoa, looks like this kittys got claws guys, shame she didn't think to bring some backup" Graydon said, training his beam weapon on her

"Actually, I did" she said and the wall behind her was smashed into rubble as Nightcrawler, Rogue, Silver Whisp, Drac, Zamiel, Solaris, Alex and Stormcaller charged forwards, fully intent on ejecting the unwanted intruders.

As the P.O.H engaged the X-men Kitty ran at Graydon, forgetting that she'd gone solid, he smacked her to one side as he concentrated on his main target.

"Your brothers the heart of the X-men, and you're the only family he has left" he sneered, training his pistol on Alex. Rogue and Solaris both saw what he was planning to do and shoved their opponents aside, charging towards but both realising they wouldn't make it in time, and hating themselves for it.

"You're his heart, so if I kill you it'll kill him. And then the X-men will be easy pickings" he added, drawing back the hammer on his handgun, Rogue and Solaris neared him but despite how close they were, they knew they'd still not get there to save Scotts brother, he'd found his family again and now he was going to lose it again, this time, for good.

"So long mutant filth" he snarled, pulling the trigger. The gunshot rang in the ears of all the X-men as Alex Summers fell to the ground, a hole in his chest. His vision became blurred and the sounds of the fighting around him grew fainter and fainter, finally it faded away completely and he sank into darkness.

In chapter 10 – Will Alex survive and if he doesn't, will the Patriots Of Humanity survive the X-mens retribution?

To be continued, as always, all reviews are greately appreciated


	10. Summerset Part 2

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men or any other million dollar comic book characters

Chapter 10: Summerset Part 2

As Alex lay on the ground, his life slipping away form him, Rogue and Solaris finally reached him and looked up at Graydon Creed, murder in their eyes. Solaris's eyes glowed with white fire and Rogue pulled off both of her gloves as they advanced towards the P.O.H leader

"What's the matter? Upset about little Alex? Don't be, you'll all be joining him soon enough" he replied, lifting his revolver and pointing it at Rogue, then Solaris, unsure of who to shoot, if either got their hands on him, it wouldn't be pleasant

Luckily he didn't have to decide as he, along with every other combatant was thrown to the ground as a massive arc of orange energy shot through the air, ripping up the floorboards like matchsticks and tearing through the walls like they were made of meringue and not concrete. Rogue pulled herself to her feet and saw the cause of the energy blast. Alex's body was hanging in mid-air, a few feet off the ground, the arc of energy that had done all the damage was now coiled around his body, like a boa constrictor around its prey.

One of the P.O.H raised his laser gun and snapped off a shot at the immobile mutant but as the blast hit the energy coil the coil lashed out at it, the stronger orange surge smashing the weaker yellow blast aside and continuing on to the gun it had been fired on, orange energy surged down the gun into its power pack, overloading the device. As the thug screamed and clawed at the pack, desperately trying to get it off before it exploded and took him with it the X-men sprang into action. Murmur raced over and yanked the pack and gun off the P.O.H members back and hurled it to Nightcrawler who quickly teleported away, then re-appeared in a cloud of smoke and brimstone as a small yellow-orange explosion went off in the grounds, ripping a nearby tree into toothpicks. The boy drew and brandished a short knife at the two mutants who'd saved him, his hatred of them overriding any gratitude at them saving his life. In response Murmur slammed a fist into the side of his head, knocking him out cold.

"Why didn't you finish the job?" Solaris asked

"Don't tempt me" she said, glaring down at the P.O.H member

"I'm glad you didn't, we're better than that, you're better than that" he said

"Thanks" she replied, blushing awkwardly. Other P.O.H members lifted their weapons, training them on Alex

"Don't bother, kill the other freaks first, we'll figure out how to get rid of that one later" Graydon said as he and his men climbed back to their feet, unsure of what to do.

They looked at the X-men, Amara was in her fire form holding two massive fireballs, Solaris's hands were glowing with white fire, as were his eyes, Taipan was glaring at them like a cobra glaring at a mongoose, Drac was smiling widely with his fangs visible and his cloak like coat flapping, looking every bit the vampire his powers made him resemble, Silver Whisp was looking like a stormcloud with anger management issues and Rogue had placed her hands on Solaris's and Amaras shoulders, one eye glowing with the solar white fire, the other with a primal, orange inferno

"Still wanna try your luck?" Kitty asked them, smiling broadly

"We'll pass, we did what we came here to do anyway, y'all have a nice evening" Graydon said, turning and running out of the mansion like a kicked dog. As they neared the door a massive shape dropped down to block their path, it roared like a enraged animal and the P.O.H were suddenly rooted to the spot, caught between a rock and a mutant place.

"Actually, I think we'll stick around" Graydon said, taking a step backwards

"Good, keep an eye on these jerks" Kitty said to Taipan, Amara, Silver Whisp, Stormcaller, Drac and Kurt, immediately assuming command

"My pleasssure" Taipan said, grinning as he slithered closer to Duncan

"I wouldn't try anything if I were you" he hissed

"Or what?" Duncan sneered, unable to help himself despite the danger he was in. Taipan sprayed venom at Duncans dropped laser gun, which melted into a puddle of molten slag on the floor

"Or that" he hissed, deathly serious. Duncan was very quiet after that

With the P.O.H under control Kitty looked over at the door, unaware of who'd blocked Graydons escape, whoever it was was standing in the shadows created by the collapsed building, she'd thought it was Logan but according to the Professor he was somewhere in northern Canada and wouldn't be back for a few days at the least. Then the mysterious figure stepped forwards into the light and his identity was revealed. As soon as she saw his face Kitty took a step back, Rogue pointed both her hands, still using Solaris's and Amaras powers at the figure and Kurt immediately teleported to stand next to his sister.

"What are you doing here Sabertooth?" Kitty yelled

"Calm down kid, I aint here to start anything" Sabertooth said, holding his hands up as he advanced

"That's far enough" Rogue said, knowing all too well what a bad idea it was to let Sabertooth get too close

"Why are you here? The Proferssor's gone and so's Logan, neither of them are gonna be back for at least a few hours" Kitty asked the Wolverines oldest enemy

"Creed's my problem, I wanna help put right what he's done" Sabertooth said

"Your problem? how's he you're problem?" Rogue asked

"That's my business, now d'you want my help or not?" Sabertooh snapped, not too happy at being asked that question

"And how d'you plan on helping?" Rogue asked sarcastically

"Well for starters I can tell you what's wrong with Cyclops's brother over there" he said, looking at the comatose Alex

"You know?" Kitty asked

"I got a theory, but if you don't let me get a better look that's all it's gonna be, a theory, not a cure"

"Fine but try anything"

"And I get beat black and blue, and that's nothing compared to what Wolverine'll do to me when he gets back here" Sabertooth said, completing Rogues sentence. He slowly walked over to where Alex was floating, growling threateningly at the P.O.H as he passed by them, who shrank back in fear except for Graydon Credd, who continued to glare at Sabertooh with something close to absolute loathing in his eyes. Sabertooh stopped a few feet away from Alex and remained silent for a minutes, drumming his fingers on the nearby wall thoughtfully before replying

"O.K, from what I can see, he's hurt, real bad"

"Wow, like we didn't already know that" Rogue replied sarcastically, Kitty elbowed her in the ribs and Sabertooth continued

"It looks like his power's protecting him, he's gone into some kind of hibernation while it's trying to heal him, or stop him from dying" Sabertooth said

"Can it heal him?" Kitty asked, Sabertooh sighed as he replied

"Unless he's got some new powers from the last time I saw him, no, it can't, he'll be like that for the rest of his life, I'm sorry" he said, sounding as if he genuinely meant it

All of the students present stared into space, expressions of shock and sorrow on their faces. A cry of pain from behind them brought them all to their senses. Graydon was standing with Duncan, having shoved Kurt aside, and holding the massive cannon they'd salvaged from the sentinel

"DIE FREAKS!!!" Creed shrieked at the top of his lungs as the cannon charged up and fired. Unfortunately he hadn't realised just how heavy the cannon was and as it fired, his arms gave out and he dropped the cannon, the ensuing blast shot right past where Rogue, Kitty and the others were, and where Sabertooth was standing, hitting the comatose Havok.

"YOU STUPID IDIOT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Rogue yelled at Graydon

"He killed Summers little brother" Duncan said

"No, remember what happened when one of your goons shot at it before? What d'you think it'll do now you've hit it with fifty times as much power?" Kitty said

"Oh, didn't think of that" Duncan replied as the energy field shuddered under the impact, than blasted outwards, engulfing everything near it in a massive orange maelstrom of explosive energy. Sabertooth threw himself into the air but saw he wasn't to get away form it before a small blast of wind lifted him up further and carried him to where the X-men were standing.

"Why'd you do that? Didn't Xavier tell you I aint on your side?"

"Hey, we mutants gotta look out for each other" Stormcaller said

With the X-men and Sabertooth distracted by the energy storm, the P.O.H decided it would be a good time to make their escape. They'd cleared the debirs and were nearly out of the door when they saw their way blocked yet again.

A battered and bleeding, but still very much alive Beast, Jean, Cyclops, the Professor, Storm and Archangel were standing on the lawn outside the Institute

"You leaving so soon? The party's just starting" Cyclops asked. The Professor used his telepathy and the P.O.H's weapons dropped to the ground with a clatter and they all sat down, unmoving.

"That should keep them there for awhile" the Professor said as the returning X-men entered the Institute. Scott dropped to his knees as he saw the energy maelstrom and Alex in the centre of it. Then he saw Sabertooth

"What did you do?" he growled, rising to his feet and advancing towards the Acolyte

"Relax Scott, he's with us" Rogue said

"What…what happened to Alex?" Scott asked

"Creed shot him" Kitty said, Scott turned around to look directly at Creed, reaching up to remove his glasses. Jean took his arm

"Don't Scott, it won't help your brother, Creed's not worth it" she said, Scott sighed and hugged her

"You're right, Alex wouldn't want me to anyway" he replied, breaking contact and turning to look at the Professor, who'd been filled in on Alex's condition by Sabertooth

"Is there anything we can do?" he asked desperately

"I don't think so Scott, unless there's some way to heal him and even then I don't know if he'll be able to get his powers back under control"

"Right, none of us have healing powers" Scott said

"I do, sort of" Warren said suddenly

"You do?"

"Yes, well my blood can heal pretty much any injury, I'm not sure if it'll work on such a bad gunshot wound though" Warren replied

"Even if you can heal him, we can't get it to him, nothing could survive that energy storm" Beast said

"We've got to try, Jean, can you hold it back long enough for me to get Warrens blood to Alex?" Scott asked

"I'll try, but why does it have to be you?" Jean asked, not wanting him to risk his life like that

"I've got to, he's my brother, the only family I have" Scott replied. Warren grabbed a hypodermic syringe and quickly stuck it in his arm, then he drew it out and handed the full syringe to Scott

"Just drip it into the wound, it should heal in a few seconds" he said

"Thanks Warren"

"Don't mention it, and good luck"

Scott and Jean advanced to the edge of the energy storm, Jean stretched out her hands and the energy parted, clearing a path big enough for two people. After taking a few steps into the storm, Jean cried out and sank to her knees, the pathway ahead of them shrank, then vanished completely.

"Jean, go back, you can't keep this up" Scott told her

"I can't, the path needs to be maintained from in here" she said

"I'll be O.K, I won't leave you" he said, Jean gabbed him and kissed him

"You'd better not" she said, breaking away and backing out of the storm. As she did her barrier failed completely and the orange energy storm descended on Cyclops. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the full force of the storm, but he didn't feel anything, he opened his eyes and saw he wasn't even scratched. Amazed he tried to walk forwards but couldn't, the storm might not be hurting him, but it was still a strong storm and he couldn't move any further forwards. Gripping the syringe tightly in his hand he suddenly had an idea, reaching up and removing his shades he let the full force of his powers blast outwards. When his red optic blasts hit Alex's orange energy they seemed to merge, cancelling each other out, Scott walked forwards, the storm now feeling like nothing but a light breeze.

He reached Alex and held out the syringe, letting the blood within it fall down onto the gunshot wound in his brothers chest. As he watched the blood seemed to sink into the wound and it started to close, within a few seconds it had healed completely and he looked around to see the storm fading away.

Jean ran over to him

"Did it work?" she asked eagerly

"No" he said softly, Jean looked down to see Alex still floating a few inches off the ground, a thin tendril of energy still coiled around his chest.

A few hours later Scott was sitting out on the front steps of the mansion, watching as Graydon, Duncan and the other P.O.H members were put in the back of police cars and driven away, sirens blaring.

"Hey" he said dully as Rogue came out to sit next to him

"How's your brother doing? Any improvement?" she asked

"None, he's still in a coma, Beast and the Professor say there's a chance he'll come out of it, but not a good one" he replied

"I'm really sorry Scott" Rogue said, resting a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He pulled away and stood up

"Thanks Rogue" he said, smiling faintly before going back inside, looking for Jean and wondering how he was going to explain this to his brothers adoptive parents.

As Rogue stood up to leave Sabertooth walked out, on his way out

"Thanks for helping us" she said

"It was nothing, like I said, Creed's my problem" he said

"What's that mean? How come he's your problem?" she asked, Sabertooth stopped before replying

"Logan never told you my name did he? It's Victor, Victor Creed" he said before continuing down the steps, hopping on his motorbike and driving out of the gates, leaving a very shocked Rogue behind.

The next day Logans bike pulled into the Institute and stopped outside the door to the mansion, he and his passenger hopped off and walked up the steps. She stayed in the foyer as he went into the living room, where all of the Institutes residents had gathered.

"Looks like I missed one hell of a party" he said. Scott immediately stood up and walked out of the room

"Scott, wait" Jean said, running after him

"What's up with shades?" he asked

"He had a rough night" Kitty said, Logan looked over at the Professor, who nodded, giving Logan the go ahead to make his big announcement.

"Well, in case the Professor hasn't told you kids, the reason I left was to bring a new mutant here to the Institute" he said and a girl wearing the same outfit she'd been wearing the last time she'd been here walked into the room. Kitty, Beserker and the other students who'd been here then immediately realised who she was, and couldn't believe Logan would risk bringing her there

"This is Laura Kinney, better know as X-23" he said, introducing his clone

"Hi" she said, extending her claws

To be continued in The Next Evolution: The Weapon, The Serpent And the Vampire

As always, all reviews are accepted and appreciated


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